Page 49 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
I find the strength to pull away from Crown, turning around to look at him. He’s hard to see, considering how dark it is now. Actually, I think dawn is on the horizon, that’s how long I’ve been in Cat’s office. I’m exhausted. And I’m reeling. I have ideas about what I want to do, feelings, intuition.
But concrete plans? Those I do not have.
After what the club did to the mafia, heads are going to roll. War is on its way back into town, and I’m caught firmly in the middle of it.
“You were going to let him. That’s the part I hate the most. You knew what he was doing, and you didn’t stop him.” Crown lets me rant, waiting there in his typical ‘bad boy biker’ pose, the one I like to make fun of the guys for. I guess it really does make them look badass (even if it kills me to admit it). “You let Cat put a gun to my head and pull the trigger. Shoot my …” I choke when I think about my black and white husky, Feminist. He must still be with Reba. It’s in both of their best interests that I don’t contact her. I should let them be, safer without me. “Shoot my dog,” I finish, lifting my chin proudly. “You once basically admitted that if Cat really had intended to kill me, you’d let him. I could see your shame.”
Crown is already shaking his head, running his inked fingers through his hair. Rumor has it that the tattoos on his body tell a whole story. That’s what the club-whores say anyway. It occurs to me that for them to know that, Crown would actually have to spend time talking to them—something that many of the men don’t do. Also, it’s clear he never told them what, exactly, that story was or else the gossip would be all over the compound.
I so desperately want to know that I can feel a churning pain in my chest.
“No.” Just that one word. He steps up to me, his boots toe-to-toe with the rubber-soled slippers I put on after Beast told me to head to the clubhouse. When he grabs my chin, I reach up and curl my fingers around his wrist, feeling the throbbing of his pulse. “Like I said, you only think you’re a master strategist, Gidge.” Crown pauses and wets his full lower lip, drawing my attention to his mouth. Amber’s mouth now. Her property. I don’t want to accept that. “The shame you saw that day was because I would never—could never—allow Cat to truly hurt you.”
“Are you in love with Amber?” I blurt, because Crown is telling me something that I’ve always wanted to hear. Yet he’s engaged. After all this time, he’s done it. Found the woman he’s been waiting for. My question echoes his from earlier. We might not be together, but we can’t stand the thought of the other choosing someone else.
“Amber?” Crown asks, releasing my chin and blinking a few times, like he isn’t sure where the question came from. “What does any of this have to do with Amber?” He sounds mystified, like I’ve thrown a glass of cold water on the tenderness between us.
“How can you say these things to me when she’s waiting for you?” I wonder, trying to decipher the look of annoyance that flashes across his face. “She showed me her ring earlier.” I offer that up, so that he’ll know that I know, but I won’t have to hear him say it.
“Did she?” he asks dryly, looking away from me toward the endless darkness of the woods. God forbid we were ever stuck on this compound during a zombie apocalypse; the ground would come alive. Lord only knows how many bodies are buried out here.
I find it peaceful anyway.
“It’s a pretty ring,” I add, and Crown gives me a harsh look. He knows I’m full of shit. There isn’t a single instance in the multiverse where Gidget Kesselring would say something that shallow and stupid, and mean it seriously.
“Prettier than this?” Crown asks, patting the pocket on his vest where he stashed Grey’s ring.
“I don’t know,” I reply glibly, tossing my hair over my shoulder and acting like there aren’t fresh tears drying on my cheeks. That I didn’t cry for the first time in fucking forever. “Did you blow a half-mil on it?”
“That would be silly,” Crown says slowly, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he stares up at the dark canopy above our heads. “I’m the sentimental type.” He looks back at me. “I wanted to give my wife the ring that my aunt inherited from her great-grandmother—my great-great grandmother.”
His aunt. Interesting. Why would he have his aunt’s ring?
Another story that I want to know all about. I want to know everything there is that Crown could possibly tell me.
